Case: Morgan Stanley 2006

2006

2001

THE STORY

"We're back on track. We got a little fancy there, for a while; it's time now to return to our authentic roots, set aside our differences, and pull the team together." This is the implied message that returning CEO John Mack is sending with this very discrete and essentially internally-focused rebranding.

After a period of corporate turmoil, this is a regrounding in Morgan Stanley's "the quiet company" heritage, refocusing on performance rather than self-promotion (which the logo's triangle was felt to represent). Carbone Smolan, who had been quietly working on design of event and communication graphics, were well placed to see the needs and the solutions.

For designers it's a particularly interesting case, for (1) the subtlety of the letterforms redesign, felt but not seen, and (2) the sometimes greater impact of a new visual system, on priority audiences, than of a new logo. Tony Spaeth